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“She’s scared. And the fact is, if she stays scared, she’ll keep making mistakes that are going to get her killed. And, more importantly, they may get the people she is being paid to protect killed. She will not graduate from the academy as she is. But with the implant, we can turn her from a cowering puppy to the ferocious guard dog she needs to be. All her reports indicate she has moments of brilliance and bravery. She’s smart. She’s tactically brilliant, in fact. But if she can’t overcome this fear, she’s going to be useless to herself and everyone else.”
Useless…
That word echoes through the years and finds me sitting in another medical bay, being looked at with the same kind of sad disappointment I experienced before. People hate it when they find out that you’re weak. They might not like it when you’re a pain in their ass, but they really hate it when you’re a complete mess.
“I think we need to scan her head and see what’s happening inside it. If there’s something physical, then we may need to do surgery to address it.”
“It’s the implant. They put it in there to stop me from failing out of the academy.”
“Some kind of mental modification device?”
“Yeah. Something like that. It makes me less afraid, even if I get hurt. Actually, I think maybe especially if I get hurt. I was trained to be a bodyguard. The sort that throws themselves in front of a bullet for someone when they need protection. But I was afraid. And I kept getting hurt. I got a choice, fail out and go back to poverty, or get the implant. I got the implant.”
“And you graduated?”
“Not quite…” I feel myself smirking. “I lost my fear. But I also lost my sense of obligation to the academy. Seemed to me that I needed to make money, and it didn’t really matter how that happened, as long as it did. So I ran away from the academy, became a pirate, and for the first time in my life, I was rich. I was good at something. I am very, very good at piracy.”
Thorn rumbles with reluctant agreement. “I’m aware. You’ve stolen everything that hasn’t been nailed down since you landed on the planet.”
“I did what I needed to do, to do what I needed to do,” I say, repeating myself. “And then I started to enjoy it. And then I started to get even better at it. And then I enjoyed it even more… and then there were a few hiccups.”
“What kind of hiccups?”
“A mutiny. My first mate decided to take over my ship after a raid went wrong. We lost three shipmates. She said I was reckless and was going to get them all killed. The crew sided with her. They were nice enough to give me a shuttle with rations and some funds to get myself started as a solo act. Which I did. Which, sort of, I guess, lands me here, freaking out in your medical bay.”
I make my confessions, giving him the very abridged version of a misspent life.
I hate how this feels. It’s like I’ve been wearing armor for years and now it’s been ripped off, but it wasn’t just over my body. It was knitted into my skin. I feel raw and exposed and in pain with every breath I take. It just doesn’t feel right. Not any of it. It’s not my head that feels wrong. It’s my body. It’s all off.
“Can you give me anything for this?”
The doctor answers my question. “I can give you all sorts of things. No real way to know how they’ll affect you, because your biology is so different from ours. We can experiment and take notes, and see what is effective and what isn’t. That way, any future humans arriving will have some kind of medical history to refer to. So if we kill you with a compound of some kind, we will know not to do that again.”
A couple hours ago, I would have laughed that comment off. Now it strikes an unpleasant chord somewhere deep inside, makes my heart beat faster. Makes my breath come in shorter gasps.
A very large hand clasps me by the shoulder, and then another one lands on the other shoulder. Thorn looks deep in my eyes, and I feel myself starting to calm down.
“Nobody is going to let you get killed,” Thorn says. “I have done everything in my power since I met you to avoid that outcome. You can breathe again.”
I take a deep breath. I don’t know when I forgot how to breathe properly, but I hope I remember soon, because this is deeply painful.
“Then what am I going to do?”
“Get used to the way your brain works without the augmentation, I imagine,” the doctor said. “You’re physiologically well enough as far as I can tell. It’s not a problem with your body. For the moment we’ll monitor you and see how you do.”
“Don’t worry,” Thorn says. “You’re safe.”
I’ve never felt so unsafe in my life.
6BROKEN
Thorn
I fucked her brains out, in some way. I did exactly what I wanted to do. I broke through her exterior and I found her weakness, I drew it out and I turned her from a wild, confident thing into a cowering, shaking wreck. And I hate every little bit of it.
Sometimes it is so easy to get focused on breaking a thing that I forget what will be left after it is broken.
“Come here,” I growl, picking her up. “You’re coming with me.”
